HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Voss.
                  “Now’s not the best time,” she said.
                  “He won’t come into the station, Detective. Says he wants to remain anonymous, but he knows who shot your man behind the sugar factory,” said the mousy receptionist on the other end.
                  Sarah sighed, “This better not be another crackpot tip, Miranda.”
                  “Hey, no guarantees,” said the receptionist. “I’ll patch him through.”
                  Sarah waited, listening to a series of clicks, as she watched forensics turn the gun over in a tray, searching for its serial number.
                  After the last click, she heard the line open up, and announced herself.
                  “This is Detective Sarah Voss.”
                  “I have an address,” said a man on the other end. His voice was low, gruff, gravelly. It gave away his age. She was talking to someone not much older than herself. “If you go there, you’ll find the shooter.”
                  “And how will I know that?” she asked, immediately pegging this guy as full of shit.
                  “Fingerprints. They’ll be the same as whatever you’re finding back there at the canal.”
                  Sarah paused. It would have been a fair point if they had any prints, but the man sounded confident enough.
                  “There are only two types of people that make a call like this,” she began. “People who are bat-shit crazy and people who committed the crime in the first place. If anything you’re telling me pans out, I’m going to think you had something to do with this.”
                  Sarah heard nothing on the other end. She waited.
                  Finally the man verbalized an address. It wasn’t too far from here. It was worth checking out. No sooner than she had written it down, the man hung up.
                  Sarah returned her cell to her pocket.
                  Something in her gut told her she ought to check this one out alone.
                  She headed for her car and was gone before Linden turned and realized his partner was nowhere in sight.
    *              *              *
                  Hunter came-to. Her vision was filled with the knife in her hands, as though it was magnified, as though it was all she could see. The blade glistened bright red. Panic sliced through her. It was blood. Why was she holding a bloody knife?
                  She looked down at her lap, searching in a panic of confusion, and saw three large blood droplets across her jeans.
                  In a jolt, she dropped the knife. It clanged against the hardwood floor. She grabbed her head with her hands and began pulling at her hair as her mouth twisted into a frown of remorse.
                  What had happened? Where had she gone? And most importantly, where was Ash?
                  Hunter jumped, startled by the sound of something in the bathroom. Something heavy, hard had fallen there.
                  Hunter scrambled to her feet, turning towards the bathroom.
                  She nearly screamed a sigh of relief.
                  There stood Ash. He was in front of the sink, examining his neck in the mirror. A bottle of rubbing alcohol and iodine had fallen into the sink and on the ground.
                  She stared at him with wide eyes as she slowly approached. She was so afraid she had done that, cut him. She remembered her father had been here. He had left the knife. She had slipped away, hadn’t she?
                  Ash removed the cotton ball he had been using to blot alcohol against the cut, and began covering the laceration with a large band-aid.